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Blogging Sax Rohmer… in the Beginning, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer… in the Beginning, Part One

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illo-Sax Rohmerrohmer2“The Mysterious Mummy” marked Sax Rohmer’s first appearance in print. Only 20 years old at the time, Rohmer was then writing under the byline of A. Sarsfield Ward. Born Arthur Henry Ward, Sarsfield was a surname of historical repute from his mother’s side of the family, which he adopted at the start of his writing career.

A preview of the story was featured in the November 19, 1903 issue of Pearson’s Weekly, with the full story printed in the November 24 issue. “The Mysterious Mummy” languished in obscurity until it was reprinted by Peter Haining in the 1986 anthology, Ray Bradbury Introduces Tales of Dungeons and Dragons. Haining also included the story in the 1988 anthology, The Mummy: Stories of the Living Corpse. Rohmer scholar Gene Christie selected the story for inclusion in the first volume of Black Dog Books’ Sax Rohmer Library, The Green Spider and Other Forgotten Tales of Mystery and Suspense, published in 2011.

The most interesting feature about this first foray into fiction is that it is not at all a living mummy story, but rather a straight heist caper. Rohmer later disingenuously claimed that a copycat theft was attempted in France and the thief was arrested with a copy of Pearson’s Weekly on his person, featuring the story which he claimed was so good he had to risk trying it in real life. Rohmer, of course, was a terribly unreliable interview subject. While it is possible the press were more gullible a century ago, it is more likely they viewed his tall tales as good copy.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part Four

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island titanisland zebraSax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu and the Panama Canal was first serialized in Liberty Magazine from November 16, 1940 to February 1, 1941. It was published in book form as The Island of Fu Manchu by Doubleday in the US and Cassell in the UK in 1941. The book serves as a direct follow-up to Rohmer’s 1939 bestseller, The Drums of Fu Manchu, and is again narrated by Fleet Street journalist, Bart Kerrigan.

The final quarter of the novel sees Rohmer really deliver the goods with Kerrigan and Sir Denis Nayland Smith successfully infiltrating the Haitian voodoo ceremony of Queen Mamaloi. While similar scenes had occurred in the past at various clandestine gatherings of the Si-Fan, the sequence most closely resembles the gathering of the followers of El Mahdi in 1932’s The Mask of Fu Manchu. Rohmer’s mastery of the art of suspense writing makes the reader believe the heroes are in genuine danger. While this is no small feat, considering the number of times Rohmer had penned similar scenes in the past, part of the success here is down to the climactic revelation of the voodoo Queen Mamaloi.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part Three

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part Three

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82island corgiSax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu and the Panama Canal was first serialized in Liberty Magazine from November 16, 1940 to February 1, 1941. It was published in book form as The Island of Fu Manchu by Doubleday in the US and Cassell in the UK in 1941. The book serves as a direct follow-up to Rohmer’s 1939 bestseller The Drums of Fu Manchu and is again narrated by Fleet Street journalist, Bart Kerrigan.

The second half of the book gets underway with Sir Denis Nayland Smith, Sir Lionel Barton, Bart Kerrigan, and the local Panamanian police chief holding a council of war to discuss the enigmatic Lou Cabot. A meeting is arranged by Kerrigan and Sir Denis with the dancer Flammario, who is Cabot’s former lover. Cabot is involved with the Si-Fan and has run afoul of Dr. Fu Manchu. Both the Devil Doctor and Flammario wish to see Cabot dead.

Flammario is meant to recall Zarmi from the third Fu Manchu novel, 1917’s The Hand of Fu Manchu, but she is more bitter than seductive. The exotic dancer leads Smith and Kerrigan to Cabot’s apartment. Unfortunately, the Si-Fan had the advantage and arrived before them. The place is in a shambles and they discover Cabot’s hideously mangled corpse. Kerrigan spies Ardatha’s ring on a shelf and knows that his lost love has fallen back into the Si-Fan’s clutches.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part Two

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part Two

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island cassell 1955island comic bookSax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu and the Panama Canal was first serialized in Liberty Magazine from November 16, 1940 to February 1, 1941. It was published in book form as The Island of Fu Manchu by Doubleday in the US and Cassell in the UK in 1941. The book serves as a direct follow-up to Rohmer’s 1939 bestseller, The Drums of Fu Manchu, and is again narrated by Fleet Street journalist, Bart Kerrigan.

The second quarter of the novel begins with Ardatha phoning Kerrigan just before his planned departure for his mission abroad. She shares Fu Manchu’s itinerary with him in the hopes Kerrigan will arrange for the return of Peko, Fu Manchu’s pet marmoset. After hanging up, a confused Kerrigan learns Sir Lionel managed to abduct the animal during his liberation from the clinic in Regent Park. Sir Denis explains both he and Barton understand Peko’s value as a hostage.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part One

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PanamaLibFuNextSax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu and the Panama Canal was first serialized in Liberty Magazine from November 16, 1940 to February 1, 1941. It was published in book form as The Island of Fu Manchu by Doubleday in the US and Cassell in the UK in 1941. The book serves as a direct follow-up to Rohmer’s 1939 bestseller, The Drums of Fu Manchu, and is again narrated by Fleet Street journalist, Bart Kerrigan.

The previous book in the series was published just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. Rohmer chose to portray characters such as Hitler and Mussolini under thinly disguised aliases. More critically, he chose to have these threats to world peace removed by the conclusion of the book as he naively believed a Second World War would be avoided at all costs. Over a year into the war, Rohmer had to address these issues for his readers. His excuse was a brilliant one. The prior narrative had been censored by the Home Office. Bart Kerrigan was forced to alter names and events. Hitler and Mussolini yet lived.

Interestingly, Rohmer chose to pick up the story some months after the last title and reflect changes in the lives of his characters. The Si-Fan has fallen under an unnamed pro-Fascist president who counts Fu Manchu’s duplicitous daughter among his closest allies. The Devil Doctor himself has fallen from grace within the Si-Fan, as he opposes fascism at all costs. This rift threatens to tear the secret society apart as much as the war was doing the same to governments around the world.

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Robert E. Howard and the Yellow Peril

Robert E. Howard and the Yellow Peril

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MenaceSteve-Harrisons-Casebook1Many pulp writers were influenced by the success of Sax Rohmer’s Yellow Peril criminal mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu. The best of the early imitators was Achmed Abdullah’s The Blue-Eyed Manchu while the pulp era brought Robert J. Hogan’s The Mysterious Wu-Fang and Donald Keyhoe’s Dr. Yen-Sin to give the Devil Doctor a run for his money.Today, the best remembered Fu Manchu clone is undoubtedly Ian Fleming’s Dr. No. Marvel Comics’ The Mandarin and The Yellow Claw are the other two characters who have burrowed the furthest into popular culture’s collective memory of the past century.

Having to choose the one of the scores of imitations that came closest to matching Rohmer for style and yet was distinct enough to avoid being nothing more than a shameless copy, I would have to single out Robert E. Howard’s Skull-Face and Erlik Khan, the Lord of the Dead. Howard’s reputation as a story-teller has grown over the past few decades to allow him to escape the looming shadow of his immensely popular sword and sorcery hero, Conan the Barbarian and be recognized as a singular talent who mastered many genres during his all too brief life. Sadly, his Yellow Peril thrillers are still largely unknown outside the circle of Howard completists.

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The Shadow of Fu Manchu Falls Upon Me

The Shadow of Fu Manchu Falls Upon Me

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MaskMoviePortraitMovieMirrorMaskofFuManchuWithout Fu Manchu in my life, I would never have started down the path of penning these articles. One thing I was certain of was that there were no more surprises. I had found every official appearance of Sax Rohmer’s master villain and would, in due course, cover all of them in this blog eventually. So it seems appropriate that in this the year that marks the centennial of the first Fu Manchu novel, my 200th article covers a hitherto unknown official piece of Fu Manchu history.

A few weeks ago, I attended Classicon in Michigan and convention organizer, Ray Walsh handed me the January 1933 issue of Movie Mirror with Joan Bennet on the cover. The second feature was The Mask of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer. I suspected it was an excerpt from or serialization of the book I was unaware of and found it intriguing that it had eluded both Bob Briney and Larry Knapp, the two foremost Rohmer scholars who have done a phenomenal job of compiling bibliographical information on the author.What the issue actually contained was something far more valuable: an 11-page “fictionization” of the 1932 MGM film starring Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy, fully illustrated with stills from the movie, some of which were quite rare. The adaptation was credited to Constance Brighton, an author I have found no other information concerning which made me suspect the name was a pseudonym.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Four

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51GMetCspFL__SY346_1134691Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The last quarter of the book picks up with Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Bart Kerrigan having witnessed Dr. Fu Manchu’s meeting with German dictator Rudolf Adlon. Der Fuhrer received his final warning from the Si-Fan and was given one hour to leave Venice or else he would face assassination.

Smith and Kerrigan make their way through the villa and come upon the lotus room with the trap floor once more. Inside the room is Ardatha, with a set of keys, on a mission of mercy to save them from their fates. She leads both men out of the house, giving Smith a key to lock the door behind him, but refuses to flee with them.

Sir Denis quickly raises the Venetian police to raid the villa, in the hopes of rescuing Rudolf Adlon, who disappeared the previous night and has still not returned. The raid fails, as the villa is deserted except for the steward, who denies all knowledge of any Asian visitors and informs them the villa is the property of James Brownlow Wilton, an American newspaper tycoon, munitions manufacturer, and Nazi sympathizer (and a fairly transparent analogue of William Randolph Hearst). Mr. Wilton has just left his villa for his yacht, Silver Heels.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Two

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Two

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drums2dofm-cover-front-300Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The second quarter of the book picks up with a weary Sir Denis Nayland Smith contemplating whether he is too old to continue warring with Dr. Fu Manchu and the Si-Fan. Their conflict has stretched for nearly thirty years and the Si-Fan is growing in strength, while Nayland Smith is growing old.

Chief Inspector Gallaho of Scotland Yard brings news that galvanizes Smith back into action. Dr. Martin Jasper, research director of Caxton armament factory, has received his final notice from the Si-Fan. Smith, Bart Kerrigan, and Gallaho immediately depart for Jasper’s Suffolk estate, Great Oaks. Naturally, they arrive too late. The staff of the great house is in an uproar as their master has barricaded himself in his laboratory and is believed to be dead.

Breaking through the barricade, they discover the latest victim of the Green Death is not Dr. Jasper, but his Japanese employer, Mr. Osaki. While interviewing the staff, Smith learns Dr. Jasper had a frequent Eurasian visitor – a woman whose description does not match Ardatha, to Kerrigan’s relief, but rather Fah lo Suee, the now deceased daughter of Fu Manchu.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part One

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imagesCA33UWU0imagesCAUEKJGUSax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The book marked a welcome return to the first person narrative voice in the tradition of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and constituted a return to the series’ roots with a close re-creation of the very first Fu Manchu episode, “The Zayat Kiss” in the opening chapters of the new novel.

The narrator is Fleet Street journalist Bart Kerrigan, a Dr. Petrie substitute who is an old friend of Sir Denis Nayland Smith from his days as a colonial administrator. As in the first book, our narrator is disturbed one night by the unexpected arrival of Nayland Smith, seeking shelter from the Si-Fan agents on his tail. Smith has once again returned to London to save the life of a man marked for death by the Si-Fan.

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